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Updated: Mar 14, 2026

Cell Death Associated with Abnormal Mitosis Observed by Confocal Imaging in Live Cancer Cells
Published on: August 21, 2013
Cyclometallated iridium complexes inducing paraptotic cell death like natural products: synthesis, structure and
Suman Kumar Tripathy1, Umasankar De2, Niranjan Dehury1
1School of Basic Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, Bhubaneswar-751007, India. srikanta@iitbbs.ac.in.
Abstract:
Six mononuclear Ir complexes (1-6) using polypyridyl-pyrazine based ligands (L1 and L2) and {[cp*IrCl(μ-Cl)]2 and [(ppy)2Ir(μ-Cl)]2} precursors have been synthesised and characterised. Complexes 1-5 have shown potent anticancer activity against various human cancer cell lines (MCF-7, LNCap, Ishikawa, DU145, PC3 and SKOV3) while complex 6 is found to be inactive. Flow cytometry studies have established that cellular accumulation of the complexes lies in the order 2 > 1 > 5 > 4 > 3 > 6 which is in accordance with their observed cytotoxicity. No changes in the expression of the proteins like PARP, caspase 9 and beclin-1, Atg12 discard apoptosis and autophagy, respectively. Overexpression of CHOP, activation of MAPKs (P38, JNK, and ERK) and massive cytoplasmic vacuolisation collectively suggest a paraptotic mode of cell death induced by proteasomal dysfunction as well as endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondrial stress. An intimate relationship between p53, ROS production and extent of cell death has also been established using p53 wild, null and mutant type cancer cells.
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